China, Brazil, India and other emerging powers agreed to major increases in their UN payments as the global body hammered out a new budget deal this week to avoid its own “fiscal cliff.”
The boom countries will pay more as economic crisis allows European nations, such as Britain, Germany and France, and Japan to cut their contributions.
While the sums involved are not huge by global standards — the revised UN budget for 2012-2013 is US$5.4 billion — diplomats said the new shareout is a snapshot of the world’s changing economic fortunes.
And the UN system has maintained some of its quirks with Greece, despite its economic slump, still paying more than India, which aspires to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
UN contributions are worked out according to a country’s share of global gross national income (GNI).
China will pay an extra 61 percent in UN fees, taking its share of the budget from 3.2 to 5.1 percent. It will overtake Canada and Italy to become the sixth-biggest UN contributor.
Brazil has agreed to an 82 percent hike in payments. It will pay 2.9 percent of the budget instead of 1.6 percent. India’s payments will increase 24 percent, taking its budget share from 0.5 to 0.66 percent. And Russia’s payments will go up by 52 percent.
The US remains the major UN financier, though its contributions are pegged at 22 percent while it accounts for 24.2 percent of world GNI.
Other major contributors will all see payments decrease. Japan, in second place, will see a 13.5 percent drop to 10.8 percent of the budget. It previously accounted for 12.5 percent of UN finances.
Germany’s share of the budget will fall from 8 to 7.1 percent, France from 6.1 to 5.6 percent and Britain from 6.6 to 5.18 percent.
A Western diplomat said the new payment breakdown reflects changes around the world, and that the contrast between Greece and India was “striking.”
Greece’s share of budget will decrease from 0.7 to 0.64 percent. However, its share of global GNI is 0.5 percent, while India, which pays about the same amount, accounts for 2.2 percent of world GNI.
A complicated series of rebates allows various countries to claim reductions in payments. China and the other emerging powers still pay less than their share of the world economy. The Europeans and Japan still pay more.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS